‘Woa horse! Get up there! Stop kicking them boards!’ And the groom hurried off to attend to the chestnut.
Collins, who had spat out his two lumps of sugar, was now busy indulging his morbid passion. His sides were swollen well-nigh to bursting—blown out like an air balloon was old Collins from the evil and dyspeptic effects of the straw, plus his own woeful lack of molars. He stared at Stephen with whitish-blue eyes that saw nothing, and when she touched him he grunted—a discourteous sound which meant: ‘Leave me alone!’ So after a mild reproof she left him to his sins and his indigestion.
Last but not least, she strolled down to the home of the two-legged creature who had once reigned supreme in those princely but now depleted stables. And the lamplight streamed out through uncurtained windows to meet her, so that she walked on lamplight. A slim streak of gold led right up to the porch of old Williams’ comfortable cottage. She found him sitting with the Bible on his knees, peering crossly down at the Scriptures through his glasses. He had taken to reading the Scriptures aloud to himself—a melancholy occupation. He was at this now. As Stephen entered she could hear him mumbling from Revelation: ‘And the heads of the horses were as the heads of lions; and out of their mouths issued fire and smoke and brimstone.’
He looked up, and hastily twitched off his glasses: ‘Miss Stephen!’
‘Sit still—stop where you are, Williams.’
But Williams had the arrogance of the humble. He was proud of the stern traditions of his service, and his pride forbade him to sit in her presence, in spite of their long and kind years of friendship. Yet when he spoke he must grumble a little, as though she were still the very small child who had swaggered round the stables rubbing her chin, imitating his every expression and gesture.
‘You didn’t ought to have no ’orses, Miss Stephen, the way you runs off and leaves them;’ he grumbled, ‘Raftery’s been off ’is feed these last days. I’ve been talkin’ to that Jim what you sets such store by! Impudent young blight, ’e answered me back like as though I’d no right to express me opinion. But I says to ’im: “You just wait, lad,” I says, “You wait until I gets ’old of Miss Stephen!” ’
For Williams could never keep clear of the stables, and could never refrain from nagging when he got there. Deposed he might be, but not yet defeated even by old age, as grooms knew to their cost. The tap of his heavy oak stick in the yard was enough to send Jim and his underling flying to hide curry-combs and brushes out of sight. Williams needed no glasses when it came to disorder.
‘Be this place ’ere a stable or be it a pigsty, I wonder?’ was now his habitual greeting.
His wife came bustling in from the kitchen: ‘Sit down, Miss Stephen,’ and she dusted a chair.